-
Jun 15, 1215
The Magna Carta
King John agreed to a charter of liberties placing himself and all of England's future sovereigns within a rule of law in order to prevent a rebellion of England's barons as a result of unsuccessful foreign policies and heavy taxation demands. After three reissues with alterations, the Magna Carta eventually became the foundation for the English system of common law and was later celebrated by both Englishmen and eventually the Founding Fathers as a document symbolizing freedom from oppression. -
1514
Nicolaus Copernicus
Copernicus developed a heliocentric model of the solar system in 1508, contradicting the popular belief of the time that everything revolved around the Earth. It was in 1514 that he shared these findings in the Commentariolus and was received with controversy, despite not being the first astronomer to propose such a system, because it contradicted the popular belief of the Church. Copernicus's second book on the topic was later banned by the Roman Catholic Church decades after his death. -
Period: to
The Inclosure Acts (aka The Enclosure Acts)
The Enclosure Acts were a series of Acts of Parliament enabling the enclosure of open fields & common land in England & Wales. The Inclosure (Consolidation) Act of 1801 tidied up previous acts, while the General Inclosure Act of 1845 allowed for the appointment of Inclosure Commissioners who could enclose land without submitting a request to Parliament. As a result, these acts created legal property rights to previously common land. Over 5,200 individual acts were passed in this time period. -
The Mayflower Compact
Pilgrims & other settlers on the Mayflower created the Mayflower Compact after landing in Massachusetts instead of a pre-existing settlement in Virginia. The agreement was made because the colonist leaders knew life without laws could quickly turn into chaos. This was the first document establishing self-government in the New World, & a successful attempt at democracy that later played a role in future colonists declaring independence from Great Britain later on. -
The Committees of Correspondence
The Committees of Correspondence were created as the colonies' primary means of maintaining communication in the years preceding the Revolutionary War. The earliest committee was formed in Boston in 1764 to encourage opposition to Britain's stiffening of customs enforcement & prohibition of American paper money. Committees like this became the colonies' first institution for maintaining communication with each other at a time where it was increasingly important to share ideas & information. -
The Declaration of Independence
Approved by the Continental Congress on the fourth of July in 1776, the Declaration of Independence announced the thirteen colonies' separation from Great Britain. The document listed grievances against the British crown that led to the necessity of the separation. While the Declaration of Independence became one of the essential founding documents of the US government, it also influenced France during the French Revolution. -
Signing of the US Constitution
Delegates at the Constitutional Convention created a stronger federal government with three branches (executive, legislative, & judicial) to replace the Articles of Confederation. Before the Constitution, under the Articles of Confederation the states had more power, operating more like independent countries than states within a union. This change was made to form a more central government in order to ensure a stable future for the young nation that the United States was at the time. -
The Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers were eighty-five letters written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to newspapers, urging the ratification of the Constitution. Once the new Constitution was drafted to replace the Articles of Confederation, it was agreed upon that it would only go into effect when it had been approved by nine out of the thirteen states - the letters were used to convince the states to ratify the new document. -
Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Women"
Wollstonecraft was an English feminist writer & intellectual whose most famous published work, "A Vindication of the Rights of Women," states that society breeds women to become "gentle domestic brutes." The work went on to say that a confined existence makes women frustrated, turning them into tyrants over their children & servants. Ultimately, the book argued for educational reform to rectify this issue & give women the same educational opportunities as men, causing controversy at the time. -
Karl Marx & "The Communist Manifesto"
Marx wrote "The Communist Manifesto" alongside Friedrich Engels. In it, Marx & Engels depicted history as a series of class struggles, predicting that capitalism would lead to a proletarian revolution and the establishment of socialism as the new economic model. The publication itself was revolutionary, proposing a new economic system that would lead to a classless society and be put in place by the proletariat, or the working man. -
Declaration of Sentiments & Resolutions
The first women's rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, NY. It was at this convention that the Declaration of Sentiments, primarily written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was made. The Declaration was written as a parallel to the Declaration of Independence, outlining women's rights as citizens. This feminist run convention and the ensuing document marked the start of the women's rights movement in the US. -
Sojourner Truth: Ain’t I a Woman
In a speech delivered at a Women's Rights Convention, Sojourner Truth countered many of the anti-feminist arguments circulating at the time. She specifically spoke about women in the context of religion & in regards to Eve's original sin: "If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it rightside up again." -
Abraham Lincoln: Gettysburg Address
The significance of Lincoln's address was that he asserted that the Declaration of Independence was the true expression of the founding father's intentions for the US, rather than the US Constitution. At the time, white slave owners clung to the fact that the Constitution did not prohibit slavery, while Lincoln focused on the Declaration's proclamation that "all men are created equal." As a result, the address made the Civil War about more than just the Union, but about human equality. -
Max Weber's "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism"
Weber published this series of essays explaining the influence of the Protestant ethic on capitalism - the value attached to hard work, thrift, & efficiency that were deemed as signs of an individual's eternal salvation. -
Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex"
"The Second Sex" is widely considered to be a pioneering work of the feminist movement. The nearly 1000 page publication critiques the patriarchy & the historic second-rate status of women. At its time of release it stirred up controversy, being characterized as pornography by some critics and being placed on the Vatican's list of forbidden texts. The book led to De Beauvoir's establishment as one of the most important feminist icons of her time. -
The Port Huron Statement
The Port Huron Statement was a manifesto under whose principles the Students for a Democratic Society organization operated. It was written by Tom Hayden with the help of fifty-eight other SDS members for the group's first national convention, and called for participatory democracy based on non-violent civil disobedience & the idea that individual citizens could make social decisions. Ultimately, its significance is that it brought the term participatory democracy to everyday speech. -
Martin Luther King: I have a Dream
King's "I have a Dream" speech became a defining moment in the Civil Rights Movement, advocating for equality & freedom for African-Americans and protesting racial discrimination. In his speech, King referenced the Emancipation Proclamation as ending slavery, but pointed out that African-Americans were still not free in the same ways as white Americans. Many believe that King's speech secured the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. -
Eve Sedgwick's "Epistemology of the Closet"
Sedgwick's "Epistemology of the Closet" was an analysis in the field of queer studies, in which she determined that there were two understandings of homosexuality; one was a minoritizing view that there is a "distinct population of persons who 'really' are gay" and the other a universalizing view that "apparently heterosexual persons are strongly marked by same-sex influences." -
Judith Butler's "Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity"
In "Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity" Butler built onto the assumption that gender is a social construct as opposed to innate. She suggested that gender is constituted by action & speech, or behaviors in which gendered traits are exhibited or acted out; specifically, gender is not an underlying essence, but a series of acts whose repetition creates an illusion of the existence of gender as an underlying nature.